Venus of Willendorf, artist and origin unclear. Found in Austria in 1908, dated approximately 25 000 B.C.E.

The Woman of Willendorf

Her maker knew what he was doing, but thatwas a cool 28,000 years ago and nowwe have to guess. Stick her footless anklesin the earth and she becomes the earth, and the earth becomes woman. She’ll fit in your hand, and yet, so engorged, all breasts, body, hips, hair, she is puresex, too powerful to hold. Her maker revered her, or maybe feared the terror of creation, the unknowable female, untempered, as dangerous as a sow bear.

More dangerous still, for the future of the human animal: imagine the moment of her conception, as her maker thinksa thought no human has ever had before--I will make a rock into a woman. From cold stone I will give birth to an idea.

Barbara Carlton​Barbara Carlton is a writer of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. She lives in San Diego, California. In her other professional life she is an architect. In her personal life she is the mother of two grown children and the servant of two cats known as the Permanent Toddlers.

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